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Nocturne of Remembered Spring, and Other Poems-Conrad Aiken · Edgar Allan Poe Poems

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  Speaker 1: Part one of Nocturn of Remembered Spring and Other Poems.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine.
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  Speaker 1: Nocturn of Remembered Spring and Other Poems by Conrad Aiken,
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  Speaker 1: Part one, Nocturn of Remembered Spring. Section one. Moonlight silvers
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  Speaker 1: the ghostly tops of trees. Moonlight whitens the lilacs shadowed wall,
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  Speaker 1: and through the soft starred evening fall clearly, as if
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  Speaker 1: through enchanted seas. Footsteps passing in infinite distance away in
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  Speaker 1: another world and another day. Moonlight turns the purple lilacs
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  Speaker 1: to blue. Moonlight leaves the fountain war and old. Moonlight
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  Speaker 1: whitens the sleepy dew, and the boughs of elms grow
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  Speaker 1: green and cold. Our footsteps echo on gleaming stones. The
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  Speaker 1: leaves are stirred to a jargon of muted tones. This
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  Speaker 1: is the night we have kept, you say, This is
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  Speaker 1: the moonlight night that never will die. Let us return there.
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  Speaker 1: Let us return you and I through the gray streets.
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  Speaker 1: Our memories retain let us go back again. Section two,
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  Speaker 1: Mist goes up from the river to dim the stars.
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  Speaker 1: The river is black and cold. So let us dance
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  Speaker 1: to a tremor of violins and troubled guitars, and flare
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  Speaker 1: of horns and clang of cymbals and drums, and strew
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  Speaker 1: the glimmering floor with petals of roses. And remember while
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  Speaker 1: rich music yawns and closes with a luxury of pain,
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  Speaker 1: how silence comes. Yes, we have loved each other long ago.
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  Speaker 1: We moved like wind to a music's ebb and flow.
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  Speaker 1: At a phrase from the viol you closed your eyes
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  Speaker 1: and smiled, And let me lead you. How young we were.
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  Speaker 1: Waves of music beneath us, dizzied to rise your hair
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  Speaker 1: upon that music seemed to stir. Let us return there.
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  Speaker 1: Let us return You and I through changeless streets, our
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  Speaker 1: memories retain, Let us go back again. Section three. Mist
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  Speaker 1: goes up from the rain steeped earth and clings ghostly
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  Speaker 1: with lamp light among drenched maple trees. We walk in silence,
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  Speaker 1: and see how the lamp light flings fans of shadow
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  Speaker 1: upon it. The music's mournful, please die out behind us.
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  Speaker 1: The door is closed at last, a net of silver.
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  Speaker 1: Silence is softly cast over our dreams. Slowly and softly
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  Speaker 1: we walk quietly, with delicious paws. We talk of foolish,
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  Speaker 1: trivial things of life and death. Time and forgetfulness and
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  Speaker 1: dust and truth. Lie lax and youth. You laugh. I
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  Speaker 1: hear the after taken breath. You darken your eyes and
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  Speaker 1: turn away your head at something I have said, some
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  Speaker 1: tremulous intuition that flew too deep and struck a plangent
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  Speaker 1: chord to night to night. You will remember it as
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  Speaker 1: you fall asleep. Your dream will suddenly blossom with sharp delight.
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  Speaker 1: Good night, you say. The leaves of the lilacs softly
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  Speaker 1: dip and sway, the purple spikes of bloom gnawd their
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  Speaker 1: sweetness upon us, and lift again. Your white face turns away.
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  Speaker 1: I am caught with pain, and silence descends, and the
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  Speaker 1: dripping of dew from the eaves and jeweled points of leaves.
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  Speaker 1: Section four. I walk in a pleasure of sorrow along
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  Speaker 1: the street and try to remember you. The slow drops patter,
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  Speaker 1: The mist upon the lilacs has made them sweet. I
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  Speaker 1: brush them with my sleeve. The cool drops scatter, and
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  Speaker 1: suddenly I laugh and stand and listen as if another
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  Speaker 1: had laughed. A fragrant gust rustles the laden leaves, the
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  Speaker 1: wet spikes glisten. A shower of drops goes down on
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  Speaker 1: stones and dust, and it seems as though it were
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  Speaker 1: you who had shaken the bough and spilled the fragrance.
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  Speaker 1: I pursue your face again. It grows more vague and lovely.
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  Speaker 1: It eludes me. Now I remember that you are gone
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  Speaker 1: and drown in pain. Something there was I said to you.
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  Speaker 1: I recall something, just as the music seemed to fall,
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  Speaker 1: that made you laugh and burns me still with pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: What were the words? The words like dripping fire. I
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  Speaker 1: remember them now and smile, and in sweet leisure, rehearse
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  Speaker 1: the scene more exquisite than before, and you more beautiful,
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  Speaker 1: and I more wise lilax in spring and night in
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  Speaker 1: your clear eyes, and you in white by the darkness
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  Speaker 1: of a door. These things, like voices weaving to richest music,
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  Speaker 1: flow and fall in the cool night of my mind.
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  Speaker 1: I pursue your ghost among green leaves that are ghostly.
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  Speaker 1: I pursue you, but cannot find, And suddenly, with a
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  Speaker 1: pang that is sweetest of all, I become aware that
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  Speaker 1: I cannot remember you. The beautiful ghost I knew has
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  Speaker 1: silently plunged in the shadows, shadows that stream and fall.
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  Speaker 1: Section five. Let us go in and dance once more
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  Speaker 1: on the dream's glimmering floor beneath the balcony festooned with roses.
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  Speaker 1: Let us go in and dance once more. The door
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  Speaker 1: behind us closes against an evening purple with stars and mist.
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  Speaker 1: Let us go in and keep our tryst with music
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  Speaker 1: and white roses, and spin around in lazy swirls of sound.
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  Speaker 1: Do you foresee me married and grown old? And you
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  Speaker 1: who smile about you at this room, dizzy with whirling answers?
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  Speaker 1: Is it foretold that you must step from tumult into
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  Speaker 1: a gloom, forget me, love another, grow white and cold? No,
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  Speaker 1: you are Cleopatra, fiercely young, laughing upon the topmost stare
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  Speaker 1: of night. Roses upon the desert must be flung. It
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  Speaker 1: is your wish above us. Light by light weaves the
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  Speaker 1: delirious darkness. Petals fall, They fall upon your jeweled hands,
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  Speaker 1: They tremble upon your hair, and music breaks in waves
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  Speaker 1: on the pillared wall. And you are Cleopatra, and do
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  Speaker 1: not care, And so in memory you will always be
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  Speaker 1: young and foolish, a thing of dream and mist. And
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  Speaker 1: so perhaps when all is disillusioned and eternal spring returns
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  Speaker 1: once more, bringing a ghost of lovelier springs remembered, you
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  Speaker 1: will remember me. Section six. Yet when we meet, we
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  Speaker 1: seem in silence to say, pretending serene forgetfulness of our youth.
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  Speaker 1: Do you remember? But then, why should you remember? Do
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  Speaker 1: you remember a certain day or evening? Rather spring evening?
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  Speaker 1: Long ago? We talked of death and love and time
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  Speaker 1: and truth, and said such wise things, things that amused us.
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  Speaker 1: So how foolish we were, who thought ourselves so wise?
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  Speaker 1: And then we laughed with shadows in our eyes. End
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  Speaker 1: of Part one recording by Expatriot and Bangor Maine. Part
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  Speaker 1: two of Nocturne of Remembered Spring and other poems by
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  Speaker 1: Conrad Aiken. This Librivats recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Expatriot and Bangor Maine. Part two, Meditation on
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  Speaker 1: a June evening. Section one. As evening comes, my thoughts
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  Speaker 1: turned back to you. Darkness is slanting through the eastern streets.
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  Speaker 1: The lamps are waiting. The wry faced moon repeats her
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  Speaker 1: vain nocturnal pose. The lover's loiter to choose their favorite seats.
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  Speaker 1: Across the lamp lit grass of paper blows. My thoughts
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  Speaker 1: turn back to you, like tired music in a tired brain,
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  Speaker 1: seeking solution in the worn refrain. It returns, It returns,
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  Speaker 1: It climbs and fulls, struggles, disintegrates, is querulous, resentful, states,
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  Speaker 1: re states, but always, like one haunted, comes again to
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  Speaker 1: that one phrase of pain, and that one phrase you
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  Speaker 1: know as well as I is. The remembered pallor of
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  Speaker 1: your face, and a certain silence, and a certain sky
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  Speaker 1: in a certain place. Why must he say these things?
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  Speaker 1: He was at fault. He misconceived me as well. He
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  Speaker 1: knows if he would only be silent and let things rest,
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  Speaker 1: if he could only see how slight it is, the
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  Speaker 1: foolish boy and everything for the best I know, you'll say,
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  Speaker 1: to think these things is useless. But music then is
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  Speaker 1: useless too. Music persuades and captures the subtlest air. As
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  Speaker 1: evening comes, my thoughts turned back to you. Perhaps I
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  Speaker 1: misconceived you. You did not know. How could you know?
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  Speaker 1: For none had ever told you that if you laughed
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  Speaker 1: or looked in such a way. Letting the deep seen
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  Speaker 1: challenge play a shade too long, letting it linger so
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  Speaker 1: like a glimpse of sky between the clouds. You did
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  Speaker 1: not know, we'll say that I should misinterpret this, believe
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  Speaker 1: more meant than was intended. You did not know that
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  Speaker 1: I would be so conscious of these things, so desperately conscious,
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  Speaker 1: like one who clings to the merest shade of meaning,
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  Speaker 1: shadow of tone. And of course you would not wilfully
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  Speaker 1: deceive Section two. You're leaning. I'll suppose out of your
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  Speaker 1: window I watching that moon swimming above the rooftops, slipping
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  Speaker 1: through restless boughs of trees. You smile a little, as
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  Speaker 1: I have often seen you smiling, because you know how
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  Speaker 1: nights like these, with all that sorrowful in them, and
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  Speaker 1: spacious and gay, are foolish ripples which time will smooth away.
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  Speaker 1: Your smile is bitter. I have tasted it. It is
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  Speaker 1: the smile of one who secretly cries, ay, yes, I
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  Speaker 1: remember it now. It is exquisite, a passionate plea for
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  Speaker 1: all that dies, twisted to irony, tortured to silent pain.
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  Speaker 1: You would like this night to come again. You would
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  Speaker 1: like to hear this music played once more. I to
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  Speaker 1: tease the secret out of a certain refrain, to snare
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  Speaker 1: it among the outspread nerves, and see what was its pleasure?
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  Speaker 1: And that refrain meant me. We have walked together against
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  Speaker 1: the evening sun, weaving with words of music for the flesh.
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  Speaker 1: Your eyes deny me that episode is done. Section three.
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  Speaker 1: I could indict you, oh, on many counts, to watch
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  Speaker 1: the sunlit shallows of your eyes darken and deepen with surprise.
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  Speaker 1: Rain drops falling on water are ringed with ripples. Each
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  Speaker 1: perfect ring dilates and dies. And so though I might
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  Speaker 1: prove my charge against you, my words would die upon
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  Speaker 1: you like drops of rain, you would as sweetly mirror
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  Speaker 1: the sky again. It is no use to close my
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  Speaker 1: eyes and say, on such and such a day, reading
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  Speaker 1: from such a book, on such a page, smiling, you
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  Speaker 1: leaned and let your body rest, trembling on mine, leaning
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  Speaker 1: your breath softly against my arm, until my veins cried
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  Speaker 1: out with music. It is no use, no use to
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  Speaker 1: say you could not know, you could not guess that
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  Speaker 1: brush of your hand against my hand, touch of your dress,
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  Speaker 1: or dark eyes peering closely to understand or idle question,
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  Speaker 1: and pitched an intimate tone. It is no use to
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  Speaker 1: say if you had known what death was in these things.
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  Speaker 1: I should have not been spun in music, or caught
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  Speaker 1: to stare and question and riddle the whole to naught.
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  Speaker 1: Why do I say these words? You do not hear them.
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  Speaker 1: Like ghosts of remembered music, they rise unsought. Poor boy,
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  Speaker 1: he was so nice about it, too, so sweet and foolish.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry it should be so, But what can a
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  Speaker 1: woman do? You tell me you are sorry, And as
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  Speaker 1: you say it, your caught voice breaks. You turn away
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  Speaker 1: from me, but not too soon for me to see
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  Speaker 1: one instant in your eyes. Far snow peaks, melting under
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  Speaker 1: sunny skies. You tear a leaf, turn back to me
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  Speaker 1: and smile, remembering our youth. But this was strange, this
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  Speaker 1: quiet change. And as we talk, striving to seem at ease,
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  Speaker 1: to ignore the ghost of love that walks between us,
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  Speaker 1: each little while, that look returns. I am like one
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  Speaker 1: who sees a face somehow familiar, somehow strange, glimpsed in
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  Speaker 1: a crowd, who does not know if it were seen
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  Speaker 1: before or only dreamed, or who it is. Does pity
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  Speaker 1: tremble so? Or was it? After all? What all these
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  Speaker 1: musings have sought, like restless music to approach, regret and
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  Speaker 1: self reproach. And if it were this, if it were
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  Speaker 1: really true that you had teased your body with my
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  Speaker 1: presence played upon me, that you might thereby play deep
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  Speaker 1: music on yourself? Is this too late to say? Is
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  Speaker 1: there still time? Could I yet capture you? Would you
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  Speaker 1: admit you love me? If you knew? Was it a
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  Speaker 1: sign that I might yet demand? Where asking was in vain?
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  Speaker 1: These things are difficult to understand. This may be real
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  Speaker 1: or a grotesque in my brain, A grain of sand
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  Speaker 1: may seem a desert stared at long enough, eyes too intent.
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  Speaker 1: See blots in parallels, tremendous heavens peal and a scale
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  Speaker 1: of laughter, a sidelong smile divulges smoking hells. Section four.
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  Speaker 1: It is strange, when all is done, when all our
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  Speaker 1: talk is done, that of all these years, only such
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  Speaker 1: trivial things should so live on, these foolish trivial themes
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  Speaker 1: persisting and persisting, like the inconsequent words we say in dreams,
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  Speaker 1: we sit at tea, A gesture of your hand touches
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  Speaker 1: your throat, Light gleams across your eyes in casual, intimate tone.
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  Speaker 1: I hear you say, how odd that you should think
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  Speaker 1: to come to day. What prompted it? I wonder the
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  Speaker 1: words return foolish indeed, but old with mystery, precious, because
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  Speaker 1: in spite of all, they live and have some secret
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  Speaker 1: of you yet to give. It is as if I
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  Speaker 1: visited once more a house I lived in, once now tenantless,
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  Speaker 1: or walked in a glare of noon along ashore, where
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  Speaker 1: as a boy I played the rippled sands, pebbles wet
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  Speaker 1: with a tie, old gray boards, the purple vetch that
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  Speaker 1: crawls among dry, matted weeds, and shells, and grass, bottles
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  Speaker 1: and crooked sticks, and broken glass, beech plums and tumbled wolls.
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  Speaker 1: They are like ghosts returned by light of day. I
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  Speaker 1: stare at them, I touch them with my hands, and
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  Speaker 1: listen to learn what secret it is? They say. And
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  Speaker 1: I remember on a certain night it was raining. We
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  Speaker 1: heard the sound of rain, and someone, some neighbor, was
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  Speaker 1: playing a violin, playing the same thing over and over
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  Speaker 1: and over, remote, uneasy, like one who tries to explain,
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  Speaker 1: playing it into the flesh, playing it into the brain.
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  Speaker 1: Why do these phantom hands, these faces rise? Soon as
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  Speaker 1: I close my eyes, I turn, but cannot escape. They
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  Speaker 1: follow me. They beckon to me, the sad mouths open
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  Speaker 1: to speak. The sad procession passes changelessly. Someone some neighbor
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  Speaker 1: was playing a violin, playing the same tune over and
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  Speaker 1: over and over. Will the quiet never begin? Section five,
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  Speaker 1: The wry faced moon goes leering up the sky. The
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  Speaker 1: roofs are shiny. The fountain shoots and falls against the stars,
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  Speaker 1: ringed with a ring of foam. The stars are tittering
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  Speaker 1: in the skies. Inquisitive trees lean over the ghostly walls,
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  Speaker 1: glistening leaves, like eyes fasten upon me to ask their
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  Speaker 1: ceaseless question. My thoughts turn back to you, like tired
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  Speaker 1: music in a tired brain, seeking solution in the worn refrain.
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  Speaker 1: It returns, it returns, climbs and falls, struggles, disintegrates, is querulous, resentful, states,
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  Speaker 1: re states, but always, like one haunted, comes again to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: that one phrase of pain, in that one phrase you
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  Speaker 1: know as well as I is, the remembered beauty of
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: your face, and a certain silence, and a certain sky
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  Speaker 1: in a certain place. End of part two recording by
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  Speaker 1: expatriate in Bangor, Maine. Chapter three of Nocturne of Remembered
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  Speaker 1: Spring and Other Poems by Conrad Aiken. This Librivat's recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording by Expatriot and Bangor Maine,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Part three discord. The hurdy Gurdy sings in the golden morning,
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  Speaker 1: in the hazy morning. It sings to the budding trees
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  Speaker 1: and creeps away. Children take hands in play. Sparrows were
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  Speaker 1: upward from the dusty street. But all that the music
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  Speaker 1: scenes somehow to say, is Death is hiding among the
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  Speaker 1: cherry blossoms. The eyes of death look out through cherry blossoms.
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  Speaker 1: Death's hand is on the bow and makes it sweet.
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  Speaker 1: In the quiet of morning. The silver music plays among
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  Speaker 1: the trees, It dances over the sunlit stones. It is
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  Speaker 1: blown like rain, It is silent, It sings again. It
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  Speaker 1: is scattered and spilled like petals upon a breeze. The
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  Speaker 1: sunlight swirls and shatters in broad cascades. But somehow, all
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  Speaker 1: the music seems to sing a sinister thing, that death
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  Speaker 1: is moving among the cool white blossoms, peering out through
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  Speaker 1: the blossoms with yellow eyes. That the shadow of death
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  Speaker 1: is blue in the golden sunlight, blue in the sun.
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  Speaker 1: It lies over the cold fields and the cold new grass.
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  Speaker 1: Cloud shadows silently blow and past, and the shadows of
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  Speaker 1: clouds are blue, of changing shape. Shadows of trees are
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  Speaker 1: huddled by gusty wind. They crouch, they hurry, they whirl,
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  Speaker 1: they half escape, And as the music, stealing down cold air,
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  Speaker 1: creeps to the heart again to whisper a suddenly flowering pane,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the lover leans to her lover, and over his eyes
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  Speaker 1: sees something pass something remote and blue, like a cold
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  Speaker 1: cloud silently blowing across cold skies, And the music rising
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  Speaker 1: on air so slowly to drift away, like one grown
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  Speaker 1: tired at length, desiring rest, seems only to say blue
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  Speaker 1: death is hiding among the cherry blossoms, parting the blossoms
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  Speaker 1: with white and silent hands to look at the world
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  Speaker 1: and smile and creep away. The snowdrops shake their bells
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  Speaker 1: against the grass. The yellow crocus quivers and then is still.
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  Speaker 1: But it is not the breeze that sets them nodding,
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  Speaker 1: not the wind that makes them spill. The gliding silver
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: rain drop in the sun. It was the green and purple,
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  Speaker 1: sinuous one. It was the one with small red upward eyes,
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  Speaker 1: slowly breathing among the leaves. He lies, slowly, pushing against
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  Speaker 1: the delicate stems drawing his silvered coils through tremulous clover
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  Speaker 1: and sincafoils. What was the echo heard then? As we fled?
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  Speaker 1: What was it? The music said something about a ghost
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  Speaker 1: that smiled through flowers, a ghost who chilled us, a
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  Speaker 1: ghost of icy music and cherry blossom's crowding to hide
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the dead end of Part three. Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Part four of Nocturne of Remembered Spring and Other Poems
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: by Conrad Aiken. This librivos recording is in the public domain.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine, Part four, nineteen fifteen,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: The Trenches, Section one. All night long, it has seen
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: for many years, we have heard the terrible sound of
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: guns all night long. We have lain and watched the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: calm stars. We cannot sleep, though we are tired. The
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: sound of guns is in our ears. We are growing
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: old and gray. We have forgotten many simple things. Is
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: this you? Is this? I will the word come to
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  Speaker 1: charge to day? All night long, All night long, we
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  Speaker 1: listen and cannot close our eyes. We see the ring
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  Speaker 1: of violet flashes endlessly darting against the skies. We feel
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the firm earth shake beneath us, and all the world
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  Speaker 1: we have walked upon crumbles to nothing, crumbles to chaos,
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  Speaker 1: crumbles to incoherent dust, till it seems we can never
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: walk again. That it is foolish to have feet, foolish
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: to be men, foolish to think, foolish to have such brains,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: and useless to remember the world we came from, the
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: world we never shall see again. All night long we
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: lie this way, we cannot talk. I look to see
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: what you are thinking, And you and you, we were
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: all thinking. Will it come to day? Get your bayonets ready, then,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: See that they are sharp and bright, See that they
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: have thirsty edges. Remember that we are savage, motherless men
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: who have no past, nothing of beauty to call to mind,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: no tenderness to stay our hands. We are tired. We
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: have thought all this before. We have seen it all
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and thought it all. Our thumbs are calloused with feeling
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the bayonet's edge. We have known it all and felt
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: it all, till we can know no more. Section two.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: All night long we lie stupidly watching the smoke puff
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: over the sky, stupidly watching the interminable stars come out again,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: peaceful and cold and high swim into the smoke again,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: or melt in a flare of red. All night long,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: all night long, hearing the terrible battle of guns, we
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: smoke our pipes. We think we shall soon be dead.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: We sleep for a second and wake again. We dream
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: we are filling pans and baking bread, or hoeing the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: witch grass out of the wheat. We dream we are
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: turning lathes, or open our shops in the early morning,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: and look for a mom along the quiet street. And
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: we do not laugh, though it is strange in a
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: harrowing second of time to traverse so many worlds, so
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: many ages, and come to this chaos again, this vast
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: symphonic dance of death, this incoherent dust. Section three. We
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: are growing old. We are older than the stars. You
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: whom I knew a moment ago, have walked through ages
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: of silence. Since then, memory is forsaking me. I no
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: longer know if we are one or two, or the
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: blades of grass. All night long, lying together, we think
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: in caverns of dreadful sound. We grope among falling boulders.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: We are overtaken and crushed. We rise once more, performing
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: wearily the senseless things we have performed so often before,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Yesterday is coming again yesterday and the day before, and
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: a million others, all alike, one by one, sous clouds
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and a red sun, sulfurous clouds, and a yellow moon,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and a cold drizzle of endless rain driving across them,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: wetting the barrels of guns, dripping, soaking, pattering, slipping, chilling
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: our hands, numbing our feet, glistening on our chins, and
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: then all over again after gray ages, sulfurous clouds, in
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a red sun, sulfurous clouds and a yellow moon. I
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: had my childhood once. Now I have children, a boy
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: who is learning to read, a girl who is learning
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: to sew. And my wife has brown hair and blue eyes.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Our parapet is blown away, blown away by a gust
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: of sound. Dust is falling upon us, blood is dripping
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: upon us. We are standing somewhere between earth and stars,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: not knowing if we are alive or dead. All night long,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: it is so, all night long, we hear the guns,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and do not know if the word will come to
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: charge to day it will be like that other charge.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: We will climb out and run, yelling like madmen in
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the sun, running stiffly on the scorched dust, hardly hearing
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: our voices, running after the man who points with his
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: hand at a certain shattered tree, running through sheets of fire,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: like idiots, sometimes falling, sometimes rising. I will not remember
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: then how I walked by a hedge of wild roses
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: and shook the dew off with my sleeve. I will
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: not remember the shape of my sweetheart's mouth. But with
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: other things ringing like anvils in my brain, I will run,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I will die, I will forget. I will hear nothing
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: and forget I will remember that we are savage men,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: motherless men who have no past, nothing of beauty to
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: call to mind, no tenderness to stay our hands. Section five.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: We are tired. We have thought all this before. We
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: have seen it all and thought it all. We have
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: tried to forget, yet we have tried to change. We
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: have struggled to climb an invisible wall. But if we
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: should climb it, could we ever return. We have known
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: it all and felt it all till we can know
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: no more. Let us climb out and end it then,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: lest it become immortal, Let us climb out and end
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: it then, just for the change. This is the same
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: night still, and you and I struggling to keep our
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: feet in a chaos of sound, and the same puff
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: of smoke passes to leave the same stars in the sky.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Section six. Out there in the moonlight, how still in
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the grass they lie. Those who panted beside us are
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: stumbled before us, those who yelled like madmen and ran
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: at the sun, flinging their guns before them. One of
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: them stares all day at the sky, as if he
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: had seen some strange thing there. One of them tightly
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: holds his gun, as if he dreaded a danger there.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: One of them stoops above his friend by moon and sun.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: We see him there. One of them saw white cottage
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: walls with purple climatous flowers and leaves, and heard through
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: trees his waterfalls and whistled under the eaves. One of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: them walked on yellow sand and watched a young girl
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: gathering shells, once a white wave caught her hand. One
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: of them heard how certain bells chimed in a valley,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: mellow and slow, just as he turned to go. Section seven.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: All night long, all night long, we see them and
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: do not remember them. We hear the terrible sounds of guns.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: We see the white rays darting and darting. We are
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: beaten down and crawled to our feet. We wipe the
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: dirt from mouths and eyes. Dust colored animals creeping in dust,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: animals stupefied by sound. We are beaten down, and some
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: of us rise, and some become a part of the ground.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: But what do we care. We never knew them, or
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: if we did, it was long ago. Night will end
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: in a year or so. We look at each other,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: as if to say, across the void of time between us,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: will the word come today? End of Part four recording
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: by Expatriot in Bangor, Maine. Part five of Nocturne of
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Remembered Spring and other poems by Conrad Aiken. The Sleeverbox
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Recording by Expatriot in
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Bangor Maine, Part five, Sonata in Pathos, Section one. Well,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I am tired, tired of all these years, the hazy mornings,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: the noons, the misty evenings, tired of the spring, tired
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: of the foal. The music starts again. I have heard
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: it all. I cannot escape at whispers in my ears.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I have pursued ued you in so many places, in
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: a thousand times, with a thousand wistful faces. I have
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: pursued you so many times in vain. Wherever I turn,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: you rise in the shadows again. Wherever I turn, you
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: are smiling there, touching the one white rose that stars
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: your hair. Why do you follow me? Why do you
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: seek me? Why do you rouse strange music in my heart?
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: You laugh and enter the shadows and change once more.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: You step transformed from a lamp lit door. You touch
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: my arm and silently vanish away. Why do you never stay?
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Only this afternoon, this rainy afternoon, there in the darkness,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: where I listened to music, you came and sat beside
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: me with golden hair? Were you the music itself? Come
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: to betray me? For the music stopped and you were
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: no longer there? And I saw in the darkness for you,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: and touched but darkness. Reached out my hands and touched
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: but air. And suddenly in the evening you came again,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: somber in silver rain, and drew the darkness about you
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: and the gleam of lights. Where have you gone through?
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: What succession of nights? Must I pursue you from place
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: to place and face to face. You are like music,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: forever moving and changing, forever weaving a lovelier melody. You
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: are like music, weaving and inter weaving. You plead and sing,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: but will not wait for me. I have touched the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: moonlight whiteness of your hands. I have walked with you
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: by the moonlight sea. We have sat and watched the
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: waves slide up white sands, the waves that whispered at
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: you and me. And the dark hair, the blue black
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: hair like midnight, and the soft, bright golden hair, and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: the hair that ripples like sun on moving water, and
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: the hair that is lighter than melody on soft air.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I have known and touched them all. I have loved
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: them all. I have played a ghostly music upon them.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I have played a starlight magic upon them, and held
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: them and let them fall. You, the white breasted one
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: who danced before me, bearing Narcissus in your hands, You
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: with the mouth like jasper, you with the feet like snow.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I have loved you all. I have loved you long ago.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: You have faded before me and left me nothing. And
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: the caress of hands, the lips, the sighs, the starless
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: night of darkened eyes, white throats that filled with laughter.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: They have perished like music that leaves no echo after
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I cannot remember the softness of a kiss, the fleeting
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: warmth of a breath. The evening falls and brings me
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: only this the melancholy of some forgotten death. Section two.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: The naked elms that lift their writhing branches in sinister
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: patterns against the twilight sky. They are monstrous corals in
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: the coldness of an ocean, and beneath them, strange things
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: creep and die. I am tired. I have come a
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: long way from the sun. I have forgotten the wind
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: on hills of blue. I walk in the twilight under
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: strange black branches, and try in vain to remember a
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: face I knew. My soul is green with cold sea slime,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: the slime of graceless lusts and awkward loves. I would
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: like to climb these frozen corals, climb to the shining waves,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: where a bright wind moves. I would like to climb
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: these cold black boughs and see a star above the waters.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: But can that be you, who have sought me, whom
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: I have sought so often? Come down to me. I
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: would like to rise to a room where yellow candles
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: shine in a golden row. I would like to sit
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: with you and hear soft music intensely and persuasively flow.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: I would like to hear you talking of simple things,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: of the leaves that hang on trees and softly fall.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I would like to have your hands touch mine like wings,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: and see your face, so white and young and fragile,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: against the golden darkness of a wall. Section three. This
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: is the picture of you who died so young, You
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: whose dreams were the quietness of music, whose life was
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: of music, abruptly brought to an end. I hold the
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: candle above you and search the shadows. You would have
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: been my friend, my more than friend. I never saw you,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: but holding the candle above you, striving to find the
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: secret that lights your face. Something some music comes over me,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and I love you. I desire to touch you. I
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: desire to change this place from a room with candles
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: and a faded picture to a room with you, a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: living music there, you, with the dark, strange eyes and
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: somber depth of hair, you, the clear browed What are
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: you wondering of that gives your innocent eyes the dusk
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: of love? What is the music dreaming behind your mouth?
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Your lips are closed for a moment, you hold your breath,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: waiting for your first kiss the mouth of death, and
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: your young body, your young white body, is dead and
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: covered with earth, and turned to leaves and fallen to
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: earth again. And the music you dreamed is gone, and
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: your swift steps are gone, and the wind blows over
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: you in the ghostly rain. I will walk where you
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: have walked, and think of you, and search on the
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: earth for the music that you knew. Yes, you are
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: one more whom I have sought in vain, One who
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: has beckoned to me and vanished away, One who has
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: gone and will not come again, One who came but
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: would not stay. Why must the music move? Why will
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: it never rest? Why will it never meet me breast
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: to breast? Perhaps it is death alone whom I shall love,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Death alone, who will cling to me, never to let
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: me move. Section four. Slow steps pass in the evening,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Slow steps echo and pass, like my own steps returning
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: from other years. It is I, perhaps pursuing the ghost
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: of a dream, a dream that will end in a
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: laugh or a dazzle of tears. I would like to cry,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: come back, but the steps are gone. My ghost pursues
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: its ghostly end. It will pursue till the ghost is
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: lost in the dawn. It will pursue and dream till
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: the stars ascend and the steps are woven gorgeously into
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: a music, a slow, reverberant monotone. I am weighed upon,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: like one in a horrible fever. I bear the weight
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: of the stars alone, and I must resurrect my dreams again,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: resurrect them all, endure them like a tyrannous refrain, obedient
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: to their measures, rise and fall. I have touched the
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: moonlight whiteness of your hands, and walked with you by
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: a moonlight sea. We have sat and watched the waves
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: slide up white sands, the waves that whispered to you
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: and me, and the dark hair, the blue black hair
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: like midnight, and the so off bright golden hair, and
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the hair that ripples like sun on moving waters, and
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the hair that is lighter than melody on soft air.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I have known and touched them all. I have loved
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: them all. I have played a ghostly music upon them.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: I have played a starlight music upon them, and held
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: them and let them fall. Yet there are none who
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: love me, and none I love. And the mornings pass,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: and the noons and the evenings die, and I walk
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: under freezing elms whose branches writhe like tortured corals against
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: a clear green sky. And those who call me I follow,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: and those who leave me I shall remember till I die.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: End of Part five recording by expatria in Bangor Main
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Part six of Nocturne of Remembered Spring and Other Poems
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: by Conrad Aiken. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Recording by Expatriate and Bangor, Maine, Part six, White Nocturne,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Section one. The first soft snowflakes hovering down the night
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: from one white cloud that hurries beneath the stars, whispering
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: over the black, unfrozen pool, silently falling on withered leaves,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: eddying slowly among bare boughs of trees. The music you
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: are to me is as ghostly as these softly falling,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: softly passing, wandering slowly on dreamless air. The first soft
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: snowflakes slanting down this night melt on the lifted palms
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: of your hands, or in the fragrant darkness of your hair.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: One of them finds your lip, and you quietly laugh,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: a laugh that means to say, this was the kiss
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: you gave me yesterday? Or the ghost of it? Ah, Yes,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: the ghost of it, for the ghost of it is
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: all we have to day. The first slow snowflakes pass,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: leaving a sprinkled whiteness on leaves and grass. The cloud
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: whirls ghostlike against the cold bright stars, over the long
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: black boughs that seemed to reach forlornly after it. And
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: now it is gone. And suddenly we seemed to walk
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: in silence, where before we walked in speech. But the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: silence itself is exquisite, like a pause in music, ghostly
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: with overtones. In silent we seem to hear the echoes
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: of words we spoke and heard last year. Clearly, our
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: footsteps sound on the moistened stones. Clearly, the lamp lit
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: hill street gleams before us, and silently we climb, climbing
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: our tragic destiny together, from lamp to lamp, up the
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: bright street of time. Section two. You sit beneath the
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: lamp and talk to me with dark hair somehow turned
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: to fire. Your white hands lie in your lap, or
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: touch your lips, and your talk like music weaving intricately
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: plays upon me. It is a magic of white, touching
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: and changing all familiar things. It flows in the windy night.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: It quietly opens secret doors, It sings, It returns upon itself, repeats, denies,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: or takes sweet pleasure in silence, and all the while
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: you sit beneath the lamp and smile or turn away
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: your eyes. We remember, you seem to say, choosing strange
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: words to say it in another way. How slowly and
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: how inevitably we change, How what was then familiar now
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: grows strange. White valleys fall between us, Your words become
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: a wind and heavily blow. We seem to be crying
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: across a chasm of snow, trying to hear the half
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: remembered words, trying to guess what we no longer know. Yes,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: life changes. We are never the same. Your eyes grow
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: dark with a tiny flame. You say the words and wait,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: and a sudden terror seizes me, for I fear that
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: you have divined the things that a I have forgotten,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: things that still shine before you, white and clear. Yes,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: it is strange. You sigh, Your talk flows on. You
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: touch your hair with your hands and sigh. And suddenly,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: then it seems to me that this word, this word
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: so quietly said, was a terrible cry. And I am confused.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I desire to touch your hand. But again, white chasms open,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the night flows chill, and something freezes within me, and
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: I am still Section three. The snow flakes tick the
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: frosted window pane. The night is mad with the senseless
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: dance of flakes. The coal fire sinks and shakes. And
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: I wait by the window and look along the street
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to where, in the snow, beneath a lamp a man
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: and a woman stand. He is leaning close to her face.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: He takes her hand, He pleads with her. She tries
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: to turn away. What is it? He leans to say?
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: What is the savage music he plays upon her? What
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: chords profound with memories. He takes her in his arms,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: and she is his. She lifts her face in the
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: somber light, and together, slowly they walk away, whirled about
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: by the mad dance of snow, down the white, silent street,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: from lamp to lamp they go into the immortal night.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Where have they gone? Where will the white streets lead
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: them to? What tempestuous or ignoble end? To what faint
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: peace or dazzling pane? The snow flakes whirl and madden
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: my brain. They whirl in patterns before my eyes, and
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I see them at last, in a small and somber room,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: in the yellow lamp light. I see them rise. She smiles,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: and lifts white hands to touch her hair, and he
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: waits wearily in the eternal chair. Section four. I would
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: like to touch this snow with the wind a dream,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: with a sudden warmth of music, and turn it all
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: to petals of roses. Why is it that I recall
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: your two pale hands holding a bowl of roses wide open,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: like lotus flowers floating in water. I would like to
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: touch this snow with the wind of a dream, to
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: hold the world in my hands and let it fall.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: We have walked together through snow for a long, long way.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: We have walked among the hills immortally white, golden by noon,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and blue by night. I would like to touch this snow
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: with the wind of a dream, and hear you singing
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: again by a starlight wall. Section five. You talk to me,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: what is it that you are saying? April? April? The
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: soft sun falls between the deep white chasm. The gorge
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: of the frozen river flashes with white and green, and
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: we are walking there by the blue river, by the
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: blue river scaled with golden fire. Our feet move pace
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: for pace through the tall grasses, and the earth is
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: light with desire, youth, youth, So sing we for a space,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: and darkness comes over your face. A great cloud crosses
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the golden sky, wind shakes the leaves. You fall in
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the grass and cry, crying silently, hiding your face with
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: your hands. Youth, youth, so sing we for a space,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: and you are crying. I know because this day, this youth,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: this beauty must go go down into the dust. The
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: golden river is dark with a sudden gust. The green
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: of the willows is ruffled gray. A great cloud crosses
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the sky, wind shakes the leaves. You fall in the
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: grass and cry, youth, April. We clamor to them to stay,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: And a shadow is on us, for we know that
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: love must die and rising. Then we see white peaks
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: in the distance, white peaks, quiet peace, eternity. Section six.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Do you remember, you who smile at me under this
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: lamp here in this world of snow? Do you remember
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: long ago? What was I going to tell you? What
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: was my dream to be? It does not matter, for
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: all we need to say to strike our hearts to
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: a bitter chorded music is, do you remember on a
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: certain day and all the years fall down from us
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: like leaves, and all this sinister world is blown away.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Take my hand and dream of youth once more. Take
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: my arm and let us walk on the wet flagstones
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: gleaming yellow with lamps, and along the sea furled shore,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: or up a certain flight of marble stairs, resting our
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: hands on the green veined balustrade, and into a room
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: where a low toned waltz is played and women rise
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: from gilded chairs. Ah, this has been a golden day.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: You lean and say, a day like music of strange,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: rich involutions, swift and profound, and huddled and sweet. The
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: wind of it blows even into this room. There is
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: a hint to forests in this rich gloom. You smile,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: your eyes intensely darken at mine. I feel the music
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: about us heavily beat, waver and vanish, and shine one
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: white rose with a golden heart held in the cup
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: of your hand. To day I muse, All things will
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: find solution. The universe is simple to understand. Take my
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: arm and let us drift like leaves when the wind
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: is driven, for the day soon ends. It is strange
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: how such a day, with such a music and one
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: white rose will make friends more than friends. Section seven
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: white hours like snow, white hours, like eternal snow, long
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: white streets jeweled with lights. Our steps are muffled and silent.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: We scarcely know how swiftly we cross the nights. I
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: would like to touch this snow with the fire of
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: a dream, with the mouth of a dream, and turn
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: it all to petals of roses. I would like to touch you, too,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: and change you into the chord of music I knew.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Can you not change? Run back again to April. Laugh
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: out at me from among young lilac leaves. Play with
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: your jewels and sing, feeling the earth beneath you float
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: with spring. You talk in an even tone. I answer you,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: and all about us seems to say peace. Peace. The
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: hills and streets are cold. You are growing old. Section eight. Yes,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: we have changed, slowly and silently changed. We are the
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: hungry ghosts of the selves we knew. We sit on
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: each other's tombs and stare at death. We are not lovely.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: We scarcely believe it true, and only then with a
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: pang that is almost a cry, that once long ago
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: we were the eye and the ewe. We shivered in
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: music under an april sky, white night of snow, in
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: a thousand nights like this, snow on our lips like
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the ghost of a kiss, And in the thousand nights,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: in a hollow second of time, we will return again,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: silently or with trivial speech, to climb from lamp to
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: lamp up the white street of Paine. Yet is it better,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: you say, painfully, turning your darkened eyes away, to lend
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: our souls to a quieter music, at last, remembering when
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: we will the sudden and gorgeous clashings of the past
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: snow falls about us. The hills immortally white wait far
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: off in the undisturbing night. End of part six recording
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: by Expatriot in Bangor Main Part seven of Nocturne of
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Remembered Spring and other Poems by Conrad Aiken. This librivat's
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Recording by Expatriot in
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Bangor Main Part seven not turn in a minor key
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: section one. I will say I walked alone in whistling darkness,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: or heard a rush of rain through windless air, or
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: stood in dust with yellow leaves around me, or dreamed
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I saw a sea made comb her hair. But why
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: recite these things? You will not hear me, or if
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: you heard me, would not care. I will say I
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: saw a sea, gull crossing water, or suddenly in the
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: midnight heard a cry, or awoke from sleep to hear
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the green leaves rustle, or saw bright windows in a
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: misty sky. I will say I walked alone and heard
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: none call me. You will not care nor ask me why.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: These are the notes whereof my life makes music. These
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: are the hurrying notes of pain that whirl like windy
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: papers under street lamps, blown through the spacious darkness of
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: my brain. I will say these things are trifles, yet
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: they kill me. Shall we rehearse our play again? Be patient,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Press your palm against my heart beats, reverse my heart
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: like an hour glass, and watch the downward sifting of
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: my minutes until the time when I must pass. You
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: shall have heard at least a poignant music and scene futility.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: You will know better than to weep for me. Section two.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I am the one, since I must now confess it,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: who came too late and found all windows dark. I
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: am the one who sat on dew wet benches and
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: watched the fountain in the deserted park. I am the
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: one who walked in a grass grown street, hearing no
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: sound save my own feet. I saw the darkness rising
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: like a wall. I heard old stars chime out and
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: crack and fall. I turned to the east and saw
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: it red and gray, saw lovely faces blown like leaves away.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: I heard slow waves of music laps to silence, and
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: wished to speak. It had no word to say. I
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: am the one whom ancient spring, returning with sound of leaves,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: could not assuage. I am the one who found your
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: pity heartless, yet could not rail at you nor rage.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: You loved me once you love me. Now no longer
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: must I take kindness for my daily wage. Section three.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: I will say, I walk involved in webs of darkness
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: across my face, feel filaments of shadows, yet hear you
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: laugh and seek for you. You have withdrawn your golden
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: courted beauty. Shall I not somewhere find the love I knew?
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: I will say, I walk at night in crowded places,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: and search for a perfumed secret in white faces, and
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: dream by night of faces seen by day, Or climb
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: dark stairs and in a dark room's fragrance, play such
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: a music as pleas of rain might play. The silver
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: talons tear my heart to beauty. The silver talons flash,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: and te petals fall to the grass, And in that darkness,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: I see you passing there, smiling at me, as if
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: for one behind me, smiling at death, perhaps who waits
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: behind me, lifting a conscious hand to loose your hair.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Will you not stay, or if you go return My
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: heart grows tired. The music ends. I will walk alone,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: implore my veins to silence, or talk of casual things
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: with casual friends, or sit on a dew wet bench
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: in the park, recalling laughter and speech and silence, and
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: think my musings are like that quiet fountain, quietly falling,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: flung from a starless darkness, flung in vain to fall
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: in a mournful whiteness, back again. Section four. The green
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: leaved bough leans down above my head. The pale green
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: leaves with a lamp light on them, shed twinkle on
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: delicate stems, whisper a little trem on breathless air. The
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: green leaved bough leans down towards its image of twinkling
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: leaves in the water. There and I am a prey
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: to trifles of no moment, caught in a snare of circumstance.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I laugh for a foolish laughter, weep for sorrow, for
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: every whim of the music bow and dance, twinkle with
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: leaves and flow and full with water, lean with a
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: leaning bow, and arrested pain, die and am born again.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: These are the thousand things by which I seek you,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: the atoms of dust that fall and break my brain.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Section five. Say then, I see too much and you
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: too little. You lean and laugh above the applauding music,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: while I apart hear silence between the tones. For you,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: there is no falling save of petals. For me apart,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: the silences fall like stones. How could we dance then
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: to the self same music? Who see so much so little?
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I do you wrong if I reproach you? Call you
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: two contented, too quick to thrill to a sentimental song.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Walk then among your tulips, turn your eyes, caress with
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: a careful hand your jeweled hair, Discern the flashing of
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: wings in empty skies. Pause for effect upon your marble stare,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: and I will not reproach you, blaming only the sinister,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: glittering chaos of our time, through which forever lonely walks
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: with lonely, the lover, ridiculous, the loved sublime. End of
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: section seven. Recording by expatriot in Bangor, Maine. Part eight
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: of Nocturne of Remembered Spring and other poems by Conrad Aiken.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Expatriot in Bangor main Part eight, episode in gray. Section one.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: So to begin with, dust blows down the street in
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: lazy clouds and swirls, and after that tatters of paper
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: and straws, and waves of heat and leaves plague bitten
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: under a tree. A cat sprawls in the sapless grass
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: and shuts his eye, and sitting behind close shutters. You
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: hear a beat of melancholy steps, go slowly by, see
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: crooked rays of shadows, reeling fantastic fever shapes across your ceiling,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: And in the enormous silence that ensues you think how
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: dusty and limp the green leaves hang. Or hear a
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: bell shake out its hourly news and clang on languid
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: clang in time and sky, those items of our lives seen.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: But as windle straws in the gigantic vortex of our hearts,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: we move, we change, we hesitate, we pause, in tune
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: with vast self generating laws. The hour predestined comes predestined.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: It departs section two and after days of dust have
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: swirled and gone, and sparrows arch their wings in the
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: meager shade, when the late tulips have welted on their stems,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: and even by the pool's rim, the grasses fade. Then
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: after all, but now, perhaps too late, the long expected
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: clouds mount up again. Yes, we have had too long
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: to wait. There is no assuagement in the sound of rain.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: We hear its pleasure among the leaves, We hear its
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: liquid parting from the eaves. We look, and in each
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: other's eyes see lost illusions and answerless questions. Rise. You
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: light the lamp, and with your nerveless hands thrust your
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: gleaming needle and draw your strands of lilac through pale silk.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: You lower your head, and you were silent. And for
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: all I know, you wish this time had never come,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: this somehow it might go, or even as I wish
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: too that we were dead. We are agreed, And though
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: we say no word, we read each other's veins profoundly
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: know the tedium of a tune too often heard, too
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: much rehearsed. We heard it come and go. We played
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: our parts with such pathetic care. I the accompaniment, and
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: you the air reversed our rolls with cord and discord,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: chiming suspension slowly to resolution, climbing. Yet somehow, through no
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: fault of you or me, drew out the affair too long,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: only to learn our sweet musicianship could only earn a
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: tardy kindness, sad futility. Did you delay too long your acquiescence,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: surrendering only when desire was dead? Did I persuade too long?
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Command to seldom? No answer shall be said. There is
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: no need for answer, for we know when we first
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: drew together, with slow steps, a saying and presaging with
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: sure eyes, it was predest And so section three. And
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: now ye say we cannot move apart. The minutes, the hours,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: the days we wove together in a mesh of pain
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: have bound us heart to heart. We strain in a
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: tender hatred, wondering whether the hurt we do will hurt
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: the other more or more ourselves. We move in a
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: close linked pain, and stretch and feel soft anguish at
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: the core, and praise each other the while our eyes complain.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: We should have seen the coming of this day. We
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: should have known that two such lives as ours, such
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: lives of ruined cities, crumbled houses, perspectives of black ruins
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: fouled with flowers could not be brought together without probings.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: We should have known the day must come at last
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: when we should see the alluring present crumble among the
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: horrible slag heaps of the past. Too old, we were
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: at heart, and too accomplished in pause and counter pause,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: and feigned confusion. Too skillfully. We played too well, responded
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: too calmly, saw and weighed the veiled illusion. And yet
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: for all our wisdom could not see where all was certainty,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: no love could be. We have deceived ourselves, but not
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: each other, pretending love for what we could not love. Now,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: in a love of ghosts, we are bound together and
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: struggle and cry and rage and cannot move. Section four.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Shall we be honest then, and tear apart your hands
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: lie limp you hear rebukes and pleadings, and a soft,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: fiery tearing in your heart presages sleepless nights, imagine bleedings. No,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: we have grown together every motion, in laugh and look
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: and question and reply, since first we met and joined
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: in this deception, more subtily fused our brains, till you
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: and I are mere abstractions interchangeable, and death to one
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: is death to both. We hate each other tenderly and well.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: We think of partings and our nothing loath. Our kissings
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: are a fanged and poisonous thing, and we should strike
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: more bitterly. Did we know the pain would not return?
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: And so we cling in desperate heartlessness and cannot go
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: to perfect lovers snared in a single snare snared in
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: a love of making love too well. Our music sweeps
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: us on. We know not where we are, sliced with
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: violin and stabbed with bell, and cannot end what we
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: ourselves have started. Mad with desire, we seize and crush
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: and tear, only to find it is ourselves we torture,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: playing a dissonance which we cannot bear. You are not
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: she I passionately made love to, nor am i he
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: You cunningly adored the overtones we thought we heard were echoes.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: The lily we thrust our hands to is a sword.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Section Five. After long days of dust, we lie and
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: listen to the silverly woven harmonies of rain. Your eyes
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: look past me, dark with pain. You think how the
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: thin leaves thrill and drip and glisten, and touch my
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: hair with your hand, we should be wise. The tremor
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: of your body seems to say, if, like these leaves,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: we forgot the dusty day and closed our eyes and
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: took what passion gives without complaining, that love is not
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: our lot. Steadily falls the rain all night it will
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: be raining, and we shall sleep and know it. Not.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: This hand that touches me is not the hand of
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the silver queen I dreamed of, Nor these lips, the
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: red lips of the cool, white hearted neride. Passion comes
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: over us with its dark eclips Section six And so
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: to end with who shall say the end? Who first
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: will break this compact? You or I? This much we
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: know it must be done abruptly, No soft proludicx beach,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: no sudden cry, no murderously indifferent glance of eye. But
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: someday one of us, grown half possessed with pain unbearable,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: will walk away into the emptiness of time He came from,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: saying no word, since there's no word to say. End
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: of Part eight recording by Expatriot and Bangor Maine. Part
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: nine of Nocturne of Remembered Spring and Other Poems by
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: Conrad Aiken. The s LibriVox recording is in the public
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: domain recording by expatriate and Bangor, Maine. Part nine, Innocence.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: The little leaves that climb so high are blown down
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: headlong from the sky. They are pelted and torn by
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: dreamless rain. They that had dreams but got no gain.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: Out of the west o wind comes calling, and they
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: whirl earthward giddily, falling into the dull dust. Whence they
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: rose to bear this rain and wait for snows. They
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: follow with wind and dance a little. The red turns brown,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: the green goes brittle. They etty with dust. The wind
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: comes chill, and then at the last they all lie still.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Even the leaf that climbs so high that it reached
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: among stars was part of the sky, lie quiet earth,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: and slumber deep. Once more we come with you to sleep.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: Section one. By candle light, he read till late, the
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: wild wind creaked the garden gate, And when at last
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: he closed his book and ran the curtain up to
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: look at the sinister sky. Against the pane, came sharp
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: the first few drops of rain, and a lightning flame
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: cleft hard the night, lighting the trees with swift blue light.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Was youth not lightning flame like this, and would not
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: striking so be bliss. The rain drops paused, then faster fell.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: The murmur of rain drops seemed to swell, filling the
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: dark with unseen grief, falling on roof and bough and leaf,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: while lightning stabs ran ceaselessly out of the darkness into
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: the sea. He heard the night wind gustily roar among
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: the trees along the shore, sullen and slow in lull
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: of squall. He heard the short waves rush and fall,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: and nearer at hand, the patter on leaves, and the
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: heartless drip of drops from eaves. These minute drops that
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: seemed they meant that youth went as the minutes went,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: falling forever, as all things must, into the gray and
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: dreamless dust. Why was he not at sea, out there
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: fighting the wildness in this air? Would he be always
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: chained to soil, condemned year after year to toil with
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: hoe and harrow seed and plow. This hand that held
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: this care now must wither and pass among these meadows.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: He turned the flame. A riot of shadows flew round
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: the walls, and he knew then that he must go live,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: laugh with men, with men who rode through nights like this.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: For a poultry flag or a woman's kiss. He puffed
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: the flame out through it by and listened quiet while
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: the sky blazed white with lightning one brief space, and
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: trees and sea leaped towards his face. Blackness came back.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: The room was still. He opened the window over the sill,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: into the tumult of the storm. He stepped and felt
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: the rain drops warm on face and shoulders, teeming thick,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: while lightnings glimmered quiet and quick at the garden gate.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: He paused, looked back, saw all the cottage windows black,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: then facing slants of gusty rain and breathing salt air
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: keen as pain. Went forth, a man to meet his
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: earth with a young and hard and savage mirth. Along
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: the beach a mile to town he ran, with dripping
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: face bent down. The drops came thick, he scarce could breathe.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: He heard them whisper and hiss and seethe on the
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: flattened blackness of this sea that washed up towards him,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: mournfully tonight. For the first time, life was sweet. These
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: waves that whitely round his feet, spread sly and sibilant,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: like pale hands, reaching in darkness over the sands. These
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: were his old days. Yearning still to lure him down
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: to dark and kill, and speeding through them, tireless, strong,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: his young heart burst with a triumph song. He fled
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: like fire. He was free at last. He rose like
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: a swift wind from his past o. Youth of laughter,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: youth of fire, youth tremulous with bright desire, welcoming sun,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: laughing at rain, making a brightness out of pain, weaving
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: of dreams, a lovely earth, with heart of sunlight, soul
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: of mirth. Speed to the sun, to that great blaze,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: to light therein your glorious days. By the old stone bridge,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: he met a van, and there at last his life began.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: A smoky lantern gleamed behind. He shouted, ran toward it blind,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: and a dark eyed girl leaned out to him, her lovely,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: young face shadowed dim. She bade him in to shelter there,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: and talking with him, combed her hair while rain whirred
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: on the canvas roof, and they heard the tramp and
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: splash of hoof as far as the second town. She
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: said the van would go. She shook her head, making
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: the black hair flow and fall, and tossed it back,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: while sweet and small, her mischievous face looked out through
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: it like a hidden fire, most exquisite, And seeing her
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: eyes burn through that dark each like a golden blowing spark,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: his hands grew hot, his young heart beat. He thought
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: this woman was strangely sweet, a dangerous red flame, fierce
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: in smoke, and his young voice trembled when he spoke. Meanwhile,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: his eyes, with hungry stare, fed at the miracle of
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: her hair, and her white hand that moved so slow,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: combing the long hair to and fro, drew to a
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: rhythmical delight, his young blood innocent till that night. Behind
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: her head a lantern hung a small red flame, wherefrom
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: were flung goblin shadows to spin and sprawl on canvas
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: roof and canvas wall. And while she combed, these shadows
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: went dizzily, silently, blurred and blent, came out, shrank back,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: and swiftly fled. At lift of her arm or toss
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: of head, she laughed to watch his bashful stare. Had
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: he seen no woman comb her hair. She drew it
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: out and coiled it, then to heap up on her
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: head again between her lips. She held each pin till
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: place was found to push it in. Yet holding them
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: could every while manage in spite of them, to smile.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: And when she smiled, her sweetness came through all his flesh,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: like gusty flame, rich dissolution, sharp and sweet, making his
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: full heart pause to beat before it hurried to keep
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: in time with measured rain, a delicate chime backward. It
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: seemed on all his days she shed from her heart
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: a windy blaze, and all that once had pained him
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: so somehow in that bewitching glow grew beautiful and far
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: and strange. He felt his buried childhood change and blossom
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: in him and grow fair as if it fed on
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: magic air. And all his gray fields seem'd once more
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: gardens by an enchanted shore, where dew wet daisies gleamed
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: in sun, and earth seemed always just begun, just risen
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: with a laughing face from the great fount of stars
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: in space. Life was a many music dream, a mystic
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: woof of dust and gleam. And on these musics came
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: and went visions out of the darkness, scent, faces and
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: voices merged in one cool, green earth and blazing sun,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: where he and she and all their world only a
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: golden dust mote world in a shaft of fire that
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: fell between two darknesses. A moment seen time caught him
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: up and fled with him. His childhood whirled away, grew dim,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: and she, being gipsy, took his palm to peer therein
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: for good or harm, in changing light, with changing eyes
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: and virgin brow grown, sagely wise, love of glory was
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: herefore told, glory his hands would never hold. His life
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: was little and bright and brief, soon to be withered
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: like a leaf. He laughed, but let his hand lie there,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: feeling against his cheek. Her hair so soft, and when
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: she stirred her head, it touched withdrew, and touched and
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: spread a lux like blossoming smoldering rose and flashing wing
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: threw all his heart and down his veins over the
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: seething of these rains. Golden horns in his blood were blown,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: prolonged and sweet, in golden tone, faint and clear, a
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: far off laughter, sinister, deep and sad. And after a
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: silence came in which rain fell, in which he heard
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: her slowly tell of youth more fleeting, bright than breath,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: love unfulfilled in life and death. What meant she these
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: were word and word, not life, not dream? Her voice
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: he heard, and that was like a music, flowing smooth
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: as fire, sweetly slowing, subtle, persuasive, a command upon his heart.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: And still his hand lay in her hand, and still
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: she sought his web therein with puzzled thought. He smiled.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: And did she then believe a destiny? These lines could
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: weave to hide such portent of disaster? Know of his
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: his own life, he was master, although she called him evil, starred.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: After a lightning flash came hard, the rush of rain
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: along the roof, drowning the tramp, and splash of hoof.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: Smiling serene, she dropped his palm and touched her hair again,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: and calm, with half averted, musing face, when elbow raised
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: in conscious grace, in vague, deep seeing, darkened eyes like
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: starless space in starred blue skies, fed at his soul,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: until it seemed that in those depths he shrank and dreamed,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: was of her life, some tiny part which had flowed
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: upward from her heart. In pondering on her living face,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: her eyes half closed, he thought, a space that life
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: e're this he never knew. Only this time, this place
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: where true, only this moment was abiding All else illusion
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: swiftly gliding or were these eyes a dream? But no
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: naught could be life more truly so and mere in
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: him as in a glass, this lovely face would never pass.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: The van was jolting into town and into the darkness.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: He jumped down a smoky lantern gleamed. Behind the rain
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: came thicket, beat him blind, and a dark eyed girl
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: leaned out to him, her lovely young face shadowed dim
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: good night. Her words were lost in rain. He peered,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: but could not see her plane. Only a hand through
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: lamplight came which, touching his hand, thrilled like flame, and
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: dark starred eyes and shadowy cheek so smote him. He
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: could hardly speak good night. Her words were lost in rain,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: and in his heart great bells of pain opened and
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: beat and fell and beat. While dark he ran with
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: eyeless feet. Section two. Rain on the roof above him
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: drummed soft rain through all his pulses, hummed water returning
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: to the sea out of the night's immensity. How often
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: had this rain been heard? And he had understood no word?
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: But now, like music's own self, weaving delicate measures, past,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: conceiving with sibilant whisper, windy whir, it talked of her.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: It sang of her, mimicked her laughter, feigned her speech,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: till through the night he yearned to reach and find, if,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: in impalpable air his fingers might not touch her hair.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: This girl was sweet. He had not known a soul
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: could be so rose like. Blown outside his window by
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: the eaves, murmurous, glib, he heard the leaves drinking, The
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: rain dropped gleefully in green and secret revelry. Strange through
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: all his life till now, watching the soil and the
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: slow plow that tore the matted roots apart, he had
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: not dreamed that Earth's deep heart, in slowly sunward yearning bliss,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: could send up such a rose as this. The soil
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: was sweet, that did such things the clod had sent
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: up sunlit wings. He closed his eyes and in that
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: place summon the cool light of her face, and her
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: cool hand beneath his own, and her low voice's silver
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: tone sweeter than music. Was this voice sweet as when
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: violins rejoice in complex mood to single time, and delicate
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: concords fall and climb. There was a plangent tremble there
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: which troubled sweet the spirit's ear. Yet was it true
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: what she had said? And were the stars so easily read,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: And could his life be swayed afar by malign luster
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: of some star. No, this was dreaming, young and strong.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: He would fashion all his days to song, and walk
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: in sunlight with sure feet. The rain hurried. The warm
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: rain beat through his veins and gusts. It went in,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: listening dark. He thought it meant music, bearing among Earth's roots,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: dreams of blossoms and of fruits, petals, conceiving in darkling sod,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: by which the soil might look on God. Between his eyelids,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: vague shapes gleamed. A light sleep fell. He turned and
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: dreamed in sinister dusk. By sea, they walked on weeded shingles,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: sat and talked. A light wind whirled her soft white dress.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: It tossed her hair. Her loveliness blew over him like
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: gusts of fire, dizzying him with mute desire. The surf lunged,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: hissing at their feet and laughing upward to him. Sweet
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: in mock of fear, she drew away from a sliding
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: foam sheet, gleaming gray. The sun broke free from clouds
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: of space, warming the youngness of her face across gray
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: leagues of hurrying sea. He shot pale fire, then ominously dipped,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: whirling into the rack again, and night fell swiftly, scattering rain.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: She laughed, put out her hand to rise, letting her
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: dark eyes see his eyes. And for a moment so
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: stood still, And suddenly then youth had his will. He
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: kissed her mouth. She leaned to him, rain, and the
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: sea grew far and dim. He only knew he touched
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: her face. They two alone in time and space. He
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: kissed her small, sweet, shutting eyes, and felt her young
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: breast quiver and rise, soft on his cheek, her soft hair.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: Blue sea gulls above them cried and flew, and over
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: the cliffs came faintly down three bell notes from the
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: wind blown town, chaos of tone. The bell notes came
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: flaring within his heart like flame, clashed and mingled and
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: pulsed and roared. Molten upon him, fused and poured, opened
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: and beat and fell and beat. While dark he ran
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: with eyeless feet. He woke. Faint tremble of a bell
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: sang in his eyes. The rain still fell and rising
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: in the darkness. There it seemed he felt her windy
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: cool on his eyes, and still it seemed. He kissed
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: his mouth more reel than dreamed, fantastic fires within him.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: Blent and into the rain. Half dazed, he went, dropped
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: down the path that led to sea, and through the
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: darkness passionately sought for the whiteness of her dress, her glimmering,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: phantom loveliness. This was the place? Or was it this?
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: He heard on the sea, The slow rain hissed. She
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: was not here a dream no more. He watched the
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: pale surf charge the shore, watched the wild comber's plunge
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: and sprawl in helpless shingle, rolling crawl giddily down the
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: undertoe into this great sea. He would go and fight
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: these savage waves of space. A song of praise for
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: her young face. He watched his chance, and stooped and dove.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: Darkness above him, whelmed and drove. He fought. Three huge
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: waves crushed him down. He felt that he must breathe
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: or drown. Her face went past him. Days and nights
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: he caught at a whirl of blinding lights. Black depths
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: beneath him, burst in moons, bells in the water beat
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: in swoons. He swallowed fire, He strangled flame. Then darkness,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: and a swift dream came. He walked with loud steps
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: on hard sand. Bright seas foamed up on either hand,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: hissing a threat of death to him. Before him, far
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: and fading dim, a green treed whirled, lay low and sweet,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: towards which he moved his tired feet among the tall trees.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: Lights came out, some one was running. He heard a shout,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: and a face that he had loved somewhere leaned out
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: beneath a lantern. There she smiled. He reached his hands
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: to her. Darkness came down. He heard wings whir. A
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: sudden music, intense and sweet, broke in the air and
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: vanished fleet. He hurried, He felt a creeping dread. Hurried
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: and dared not turn his head. He walked with loud
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: steps on hard sand, Bright seas foamed up on either hand.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: He felt there cold and sparkling breath of sail upon him,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: a wind of death. The low, green shore grew vague
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: and far. One light remained, or was it star? And
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: now the darkness drank this down. He saw no more
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: of shore or town, only this tongue of hard, wet
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: sand and black waves foaming on either hand. Where was
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: the earth? It could not be that everything was sunk
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: in sea. Along this darkening shore. He drove a monstrous plow,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: the bright share clove, a rich brown loam, a fruitful earth.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: He flung fine seed in a flame of mirth, a
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: fire of roses, white and red, wavered and shot behind
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: his tread shone and glistened and fanned and gleamed. With time,
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: these seas could be redeemed, But darkness again destroyed at all.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: The vast low sky began to fall. A blackness sagged
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: upon his brainane crushed in a blood red cloud of pain,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: flattened him down on hard, cold sand, while bright seas
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: rushed on either hand. Remote within him, A sweet voice
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: spoke something was lost. Rich music broke. The two seas
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: rose and gleamed to meet, hissed over sand, made sea complete,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: They roared together. They drowned the world. A ghostly vapor
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: above them, whirled drifted away, blew off, bleue far, leaving
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: a darkness without star. Was it the world or was
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: it he that blew away so peacefully? Section three? The
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: waves hurried, the long seas flowed out of the night
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: in hosts. They rode, seething and sinister and swift, each
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: in its destined place to lift a darkening crest against
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: pale sky, glimmer unfurl and dazzle high in a shatter
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: of foam along this shore, with drawing slow, with solemn roar,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: Who shall declare? Where they began? All night? From west
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: to east they ran all night a terrible music sung, unwearying.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: On the cliffs they flung rose and beat to fall
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: in beating, greyly and endlessly repeating, Who shall declare? What
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: hurt they did? What murder? Among the rocks they hid?
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Cruel and beautiful they came and offered without pride or shame.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: The naked body gashed and white of him who wooed
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: the stars that night. End of Part nine recording by
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: Expatriate in Bangor Main Part ten of Nocturne of Remembered
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: Spring and other poems by Conrad Aiken. This Librivak's recording
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording by Expatriate in Bangor
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: Door main Part ten, Dust in Starlight, Earth Triumphant Part three.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: Strange music filled his ears that night. The wind blew
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: long in ceaseless white. The soft snow ticked his window
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: pane and turned to sleet, and turned to rain, And
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: all night long he listened there to the wild merriment
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: in the air, and thought it strange that there should
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: be such fury driven night while he lay in an
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: anguish stretched and torn, eyes wide with pain unclosed, forlorn,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: moveless upon his narrow bed, tense fingers clenched beneath his head.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: The snow upon the sill, piled dim. Did not this
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: storm rise out of him? And then the sleet and
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: gusty flaws pattered the panes, And in each pause he
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: heard his heart slow, tortured, beating wearily through the veins,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: repeating pain and pleasure, Pain and pleasure, Life's simple, senseless,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: tireless measure. Snow turned to sleet, sleet turned to rain.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: He lived his whole life through again, and while the
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: tortured elm boughs moved against the eaves, once more he
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: loved this woman, she the golden haired, for whom first
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: love had been declared. He closed his eyes, closed out
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: the storm. The air came fragrant, stealing, warm, pregnant, with lilac,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: shaking sweet their purple crowns along the street, while he
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: his young soul, turbulent under the stars, through dark streets,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: went filled with the subtle, fiery mirth, conscious of all
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: the moving earth, the flagstones ringing sweet and hard, the
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: shadowy river mooned and starred, the lovely lamp lit maple
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: trees luminous green, where through the breeze softly rustled twinkling
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: leaves and moving the shadows under the eaves, the tree
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: which bells peal, the languid eight. He quickened pace lest
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: he be late. Music from all the dark earth came,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: the whole world seemed to bloom with flame, and his
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: young body ran like song, while rapidly he walked along
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: remote The bell rang faint and fleet, with his own
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: heart the vast night beat. And then behind the glass door,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: shea far lovelier than a dream could be, with smiling
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: lips and grave shy eyes, so beautiful, so warm, so wise,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: came subtly, timid, subtly proud, making his pulses push and
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: crowd and clamor and cry, while with slow hands, smiling,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: she drew the latch to stand against the wall, whole
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: leagues away, shrinking and sweet, no word to say. Snow
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: turned to sleep, sleet turned to rain. Why must he
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: give himself such pain? Why hark back now to what
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: was dead. He clenched moist hands beneath his head, and then,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: in sudden agony, relaxed, in sudden misery, turned on his face,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: let fall the year's and eased his heart with birth
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: of tears. Why if he no more loved her now?
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: Was it such torment? Thinking how she smiled or spoke
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: in years gone by? Why think how he had made
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: her cry this time or that with cruel word sharp
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: through the years, her sob he heard, slight as a breath,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: a terrible thing, and saw her hands repel and cling
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: and fugitive, her eyes dark blue, brim bright with sudden tears,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: where through she looked from infinite distances, beseeching gaze fixed
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: deep on his. Then sentences that broken came, dissolving him
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: in flaming shame. If he had loved her so much,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: then could he not love her so again? Her mouth
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: seemed sweet to him, a space, the childish sweetness of
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: her face, her soft gold hair, And thinking this, his
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: throat filled, and he yearned to kiss his face that
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: he had loved. And so, listening to the tick of
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: snow and all the silence else that lay through all
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: the house, he groped his way to the dark, windy,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: fragrant room, now strange to him, and in that gloom,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: stood motionless beside her bed. She slept one arm above
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: her head, and strangely tired. This young face seemed and sad,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: as if some grief, she dreamed. He stooped and kissed
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: her forehead, then and seemed to live dead, love again
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: with troubled heart, and once more wet, not knowing well
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: what these things meant, to his own room, to lie
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: and stare through the black turmoil of the air, while
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: snow turned sleet, and sleep turned rein and through his
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: heart and through his brain wild storm went whirling, mad carouse,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: tearing out roofs and breaking boughs, and strewing with havoc
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: all the earth a terrible and a grievous mirth. Dawn
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: came pale twilight over snows. He could not sleep, and
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: so he rose and dressed unconsciously, and crept past the
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: dark room where still she slept, and down the stairs
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: and through the hole. He would put end now to
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: it all, put end, not die? He did not mean, well,
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: why not die? The snow unseen spread white around him,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: muffling thick eyes. Down he strode. His pace grew quick
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: down the long silence of the hill to the black stream, unfrozen,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: still swollen. It was black eddies coiled overhid rocks, It
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: smoothly boiled, silent, intent, resistless, slow. He stood at gaze.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: He did not know by these words he had not
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: meant death. He blew a long, bright, frosty breath and
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: watched it fade. The sun broke free, misty and red,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: and on a tree a crow cawed, harshly, balancing with
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: awkward jerk of tail and wing. Sooner than deal her
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: so much pain, would he not die? And then again
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: he saw her face go white with grief, and heard
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: the inn caught sob and brief, felt the breath quiver
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: and sharply break, and saw her eyelids twitch to take
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: the gathering tears unseen away, while open mouth grew racked
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: and gray, poor, broken, sweet, bewildered thing. He felt her
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: fingers twist and cling, and pitied her, ah pitied her,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: and pitying, felt affection, stir affection where there once was love.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: His heart felt pain, but did not move. The sun
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: burst haze and shining, bright set far white distances, alight
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: flashing on tree and snow. Sheathed wire an icicle and
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: set a fire. Remote ethereal fur topped hills, dazzling on
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: little snow fed rills, And under this the city lay
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: soft harmony of gold and gray, drowsy and vague. He
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: would go there. Life must be lived. He did not care,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: not care. A pang swept up in him, a space
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: the bright world seemed to swim, caught in regrets for
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: things gone past, strange lovely things that could not last.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: And it was pain at length to go from one
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: whom he had once loved, so from one who loved
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: him so much. Still, he turned and slowly climbed the hill,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: deliberate with measured pace, and downward, pondering sightless face, and
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: gained the top, and, looking back over the slope where
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: lay his track, resolved to write, not see her more.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: Then in his heart, shut sharp that door. Days passed, strange, colorless, quiet, days,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: silent and deep. He went his ways, pleased with himself
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: at having will to live his life, and yet so still,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: so strangely laughterless. These days went. They filled him with
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: queer discontent. His ears crave speech to listen to, his hands,
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: craved touch of hands. They knew his eyes, what yearning
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: glimmered there, yearning for what eyes? And what hair? Strange
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: turn of things. Even in work, these hollow silences came
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: to lurk a queer starvation, soft and slow, caressingly. His
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: hands would go over smooth surfaces of things, seeming to
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: feel them, soft as wings. And little phrases she had
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: said recurred like music in his head, persistent habit. That
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: was it. His pain was sweet, was exquisite, exquisite, most
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: because of knowing that all this loveliness was going, a
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: passing thing, a fading thing which never again the years
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: could bring. Silence came soft upon the air, deep silence
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: that he could not bear, ropping between pace and pace,
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: infinite loneliness of space, dropping between tick and chime, infinite
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: loneliness of time, and between word and seldom word. Abysmal
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: nothingness was heard, unbearable, a thing not known. He must
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: be blunt, make life his own, shatter this solitude with cries,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: shut out the appalling piece of skies, roof out the stars.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: Hear music playing, and hear what everyone was saying. Drink
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: down their words like subtlest wine and laughter, making faces
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: shine along the river, in curving row. The evening lights
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: began to glow over the bridges, gray and vast. The
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: luminous long trains glided past. From crowded houses came the people.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: The huge moon rose behind a steeple, and in the
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: deepening western sky, now one by one and cold and high,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: the winter stars came out to stare pitless. Down through
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: frozen air, he walked alone through azure shadows, looked longingly
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: through lighted windows, and passed the moving picture doors through
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: crowds of loungers, pimps, and hoars. Why not go in?
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: Faint music came around him like a gust of flame,
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: dissolving him with promises of warmth and lights, and ecstasies
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: of hope that in the theater dim some woman might
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: sit next to him, with half seen face and shadows,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: sweet humming, or beating time with feet. His ticket bought,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: he hastened in hearing the wail of violin, and down
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: the black aisles stumbled blind, straining his unused eyes to
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: find an empty seat, while overhead the long bright shaft
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: of light was shed, pouring and whirring, weaving rays intense
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: white stream wherein a maze of fiery moats whirled up
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: and rose and dived and swarmed. A seat he chose
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: and sat and watched the vivid screen, rapidly ever changing scene,
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: while music subtly tuned. There too sang and cried, and
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: minutes flew to violin and horn and drum. And yet
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: through all these things would come a strange and aching loneliness,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: a yearning for some loveliness, for touch of hands, for
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: touch of hair, saw flesh to stroke beside him. There
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: no woman came, no girl, and he sat mute in
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: lonely misery, and wondered if a woman came, if he
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: could speak, or whether shame would silence him, or maybe fear.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: But still none came. The end drew near. He rose,
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: A vague unhappiness came over him, a restlessness where turned
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: beneath cold stars, he stood perplexed in dark, uncertain mood,
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: while laughing people jostled by, and voices lifted. Words were high,
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: and street lights glared on healthy faces, a foolish mirth.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: He longed for places where there was high bush and
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: dark in peace. The moon swam coldly without cease along
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: the echoing river wall. He heard the short waves slap
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: and fall, quarrel and splash, gurgle and fill. And here
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: he walked, where night was still save for the waters,
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: where alone his loud steps rang on freezing stone, while
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: silent swift before him ran shadow grotesquely, like a man
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: flown long in thin to wheel in fright at nearness
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: to another light and flee behind its master, capt between
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: it and the light. He stepped quickly with this for company,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: through light, cold wind, and quietly pondered the meaning of
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: these days? Was he not free to go his ways?
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: Was he not free? Pain swelled his heart. He struck
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: the mood and tore apart, pale sentiment no more grown
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: stern to his own rooms, he made return, drinking the
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: sharp air icily with vague belief if it made him free.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: He stumbled in the unknown gloom and sought a match. Somehow.
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: This room seemed silent, empty, strangely cold, a hollow place,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: a place unsold. A loose board creaked beneath his tread.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: The darkness listened in his bed, coldly upon him, slimy, cold, sluggishly,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: fold on, quiet fold. It seemed to him the silence
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: crept to make it sure he never slept, and all
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: the long night through it seemed he knew not if
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: he waked or dreamed, as if some person loved had died.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: He lay and stared, gray lipped, wide eyed. Winter seemed
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: breaking up at last with winter? Would this pain be passed?
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: Across the river? A warm wind blew and strange and
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: secret joy He knew an inward, creeping, pangful thing which
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: made cold memory wake and sing. He had felt wind
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: like this with her when they walked hill through pines,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: and for oh times of youth. He saw her now
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: reach sunlit hand to break a bough, which then released,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: sprang back again with sun shine brightly. Soon as then,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: dark clouds rushed suddenly up the sky, devouring all blue
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: heaven's eye. The wind grew fitful, thrusting chill. The sun
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: went dim and slow, and still hovering and reluctant. Fell
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: a few soft snowflakes to foretel snow falling through the
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: muted night, drifting the streets with silent white, steadily falling, whirling, blowing.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: So in his mind now it was snowing, silent, persistent, whelming, deep,
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: a much loved world in frozen sleep, burying it eternally.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: He worked to lose this agony till chancing in his
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: desk to find a letter long since out of mind,
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: from her one scent two years ago. He turned it angry,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: did not know if he had strength through, read it through.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: Then suddenly tore it twice in two, and burned the pieces,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: every one, the small words she had breathed upon, and,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: seeing it shrink in eager flame, took subtle pleasure. Shot
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: with shame. A loneliness like silent night came round him,
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: Cold came round him, white, and all sounds grew remote.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: Therein voices he knew fled far and thin. Slowly, familiar
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: things withdrew beyond the little earth he knew, and in
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: this hush grown still and strange with quiet breath. He
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: watched this change, slowly and deeply touch his life. Was
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: this the absence of his wife? Mere madness? Then companionship
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: meant the lip's need for meeting, lip of hand for hand,
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: and limb for limb. This woman's flesh had wearied him.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: Why not have knew? Had she some hold? No, there
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: was none. His heart lay cold. From the high wind window.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: He looked down on huddled roofs, the snow white town,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: the steam clouds, blowing, sprawling, sliding fleet shadows underneath them,
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: gliding strange. What a tangle life became as one grew old,
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: And what a shame the childhood's sweet simplicity should stagnate
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: in such shape as he could, that sweet freshness be renewed,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: he mused in disillusioned mood, And in his musing backward
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: went out of this day of discontent to a merry
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: world of leafy boughs, where orioles were keeping house, and
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: brown bees tumbling in the clover, and sunshine on sweet grass, whereover,
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: feeling it prickly warm, he stole intent to find a
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: locust hole, a fountain in a garden pool shot a
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: slim shaft and spattered cool, And on this ever changing
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: shaft a quivering white ball danced and laughed. He called
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: to mind, how one night late they came home through
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: the garden gate, and all the garden brimmed and spilled
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: with moonlight, silver gray that filled the paths and lawns,
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: And on the wall where windy vine leaves seemed to
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: crawl cast blue mysterious stencilings, filling his heart with elvish things.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: Were those things lost that rain, that sun and would
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: he no more laugh and run when a hurdy gurdy
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: filled the street with vibrant music, sharply sweet. His mother too,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: He saw her now, soft eyes, her wise and tranquil brow,
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: her mouth so sweet, so warm, so sure, her hands
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: so gentle, so secure. He would not see that face again,
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: nor feel its softness, soft as rain. Why did these
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: things come back to him? What music in him? Flowing
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: dim disturbed, these long dead melodies, these chords of muffled ecstasies,
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: What soft hands stroked, these sleeping things, filling the darkness
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: as with wings, with ghostly laughter, ghostly tears, now poignant
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: through the lapse of years, a music sweet to listen to,
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: and vaguely now it seemed he knew whence came this
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: quiet loveliness, suffusing all his loneliness, weary at length of
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: dust of earth, grown too familiar, that young mirth seemed
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: doubly sweet, desirable, and those illusions credible to such young heart,
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: to such brave eyes lost in the wonder of those skies,
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: illusions lost. Could he no more build castles on Infinity's
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: shore than softly through these musings rose like warm air,
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: bringing pain to snow's subtle belief dissolving warm, slowly and painfully,
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: taking form that, with his dying love for her, had
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: died these dreams. She set astir, And now these dreams
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: were turned to dust. All his illusions turned to lust.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: The world flew small, remote and dim, shrilling, thin music
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: fame to him, the hostile sun withdrew afar, compelling with
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: it moon and star, all the great seas of light
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: that run, flowing and falling from the sun. The tides
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: of life, majestic, vast, invisibly receded, passed in darkness, down
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: with murmurous roar, as seas withdraw down, shingle shore into
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: a night turned fathomless, so silent, cold and rhythmless, desolate,
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: bleak in wind. He stood, questioning, freezing solitude, searching the
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: darkness with dark face, hearing his heart through empty space,
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: with tired beating, with tortured beating, wearily through his veins,
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: repeating pain and pleasure, Pain and pleasure, Life's simple, senseless,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: stubborn measure. There was no star, There was no stone
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: which he could touch and cull his own. There was
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: no tree, no grass, no place that knew his touch,
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: and no warmth face which might towards him, turn and fire,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: should he go near? With dumb desire? O Earth, who
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: scent this soul? So straying, O Earth, triumphant Earth, betraying,
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: luring aside with music, sweet, these all too swift, two
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: eager feet, what recompense? The night came deep upon his heart,
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: drop barren sleep, sundless and songless, never stirring time, an
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: identical time, recurring, cold and slow, cold and slow, whelming
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: his small heart, deep in snow, bewilder'd lost a child again,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: mutely enduring strangest pain beyond all knowledge or all cry,
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: strange pain inflicted by strange sky. Where lift his hands to?
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: Where now reach? Where? Fling his body? Where beseech'd silence, interminable,
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: vast o'er his heart, its shadows cast. He lay outstretched,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: a bleeding thing, when low, remote began to sing a
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: little voice, soft, hardly heard, faint and remote. The darkness
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: stirred wings were beating shadows, lifting stars through clouds, flew wildly, drifting,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: went dark again again, shone through effulgent in a rent
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: of blue and slow. Seductive music came softly upon him,
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: soft as flame, caressing him, dissolving him. The world in
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: moonlight seemed to swim. The light poured down like waters,
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: rose over him, drowning, seemed to close, turbulent, rushing, roaring, singing,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: sweeping him helpless, wildly, clinging, catching in vain at star
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: and moon, while all his senses seemed to swoon. Huge
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: bells upon his body rang clang upon liberating clang. The
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: whole world cracked and opened up, spilling its splendor like
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: a cup. The sun stood still beneath his feet. Behold
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: security was sweet, Oh laughter of the living Earth, Oh
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: greenly springing time of mirth. Fire through all Earth's bosom,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: ran in concord with the mood of man, and upward
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: moved in luminous green to the dreamed of sun. For
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: ages seen the moonlight poured her silver down on waiting furrows,
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: dreaming brown? Was he not furrow plowed like these, now,
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: drinking deep of April's ease, drinking of rains and drinking
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: sun for nurture of new youth. Just begun he grew
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: in stature, touch'd the sky, commanded with imperious eye all earth,
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: and heav'n now so young, with April's fires within him.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: Sung was not first love forgotten dead. The little phrases
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: she had said, once more in darkness, now recurred clearly
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: and sweetly, word by word, and left him cold. He
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: yawned and smiled. Yet she was after all a child, sweet,
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: because childish, briefly sweet, and april sunlight flashing fleet. She
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: had been sweet to touch, to kiss, But once forgotten
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: would he miss. Under the eaves, the bare boughs moved
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: scraping the wall. This girl once loved he loved no more.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: And now he sent out of his heart to banishment,
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: this face, these eyes, this golden hair, and lying dark
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: in comfort. There it seemed he put down tenderly her
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: hands that clung beseechingly to hold his heart, freed one
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: by one, finger from finger, put them down, and, pondering
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: on this painful thing, felt pleasure through his pulses, sting.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: The long days opened full and sweet music through all
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: their hours beat. The sun waxed warm, the trees flashed green,
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: The birds sang loud, the boughs between their songs, where
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: in his own heart sung, and all the earth seemed
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: once more young. His loneliness was it not need of
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: flesh for flesh, So once more freed he took a
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: girl to walk with him. When twilight by the river dim,
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: the lustrous flowed beneath them, spread where lamps through green
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: and lamp through red. In all along the shadowy walk
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: the lovers came to laugh and talk, to lean upon
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: the parapet against the river in silhouette, discussing sweet and
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: lowest tone the moon until that night unknown, which burned
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: behind the chimney pots and filled with magic vacant lots
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: along the stones. They scuffed their feet, loitering much for
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: life was sweet, to count the stars above the steeple,
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: and search the eyes of all the people, to laugh
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: at dresses out of fashion, or some too frank display
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: of passion. He paused to light a cigarette. She said,
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: how glad she was they'd met, watching with wistful eyes
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: the flame that warmly lit his hands. Her name, it
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: hardly mattered, though was May. The name was common out
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: her way. He took her arm. They strolled along while
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: barge men sang a smutty song, and one by one remotely,
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: then the church bells pealed the hour of ten. Pretty
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: the river was at night, when all the lanterns were alight.
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: Her arm beneath his thumb was warm, desire in him
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: took eager form, the blood rose blossoming to his brain.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: He gripped her hand to point of pain. Yes, it
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: was pretty like romance. Their eyes met in a furtive
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: glance and could not look away, but burned into each
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: other's soul and yearned, shameless and large for flesh now sweet,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: and the pulse's beat confused with beat. They stood so silent,
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: swaying slightly, smile meeting intimate smile, then lightly Time to
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: go home, and while she talked along more luminous streets,
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: they walked, affecting in airiness of tone, far from the
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: blood's intense sweet drone, and a light laughter, smooth and sweet,
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: mantling the heart's terrific beat. His hand beneath her elbow, pressed,
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: feeling the softness of her breast, her breast now his.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: He could not speak. He leaned to her, grown faintly weak,
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: his lips grew dry, and suddenly came sharp realization of
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: his shame. Torrents of memories filled his brain, clouding the
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: flesh's bliss with pain, whirling his thoughts out like a wind.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: Was it betrayal? Had he sinned? Tumult ensued. He felt
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: her arm under his hand, so living, warm and feeling this,
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: he closed his eyes for bad, those troubling dreams to rise,
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: and suddenly laughed more swiftly, walking, listened, intently, started talking,
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: and squeezed her hand for anser. Aster came a smile, indulgent,
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: free from shame, a smile that stripped her body bare,
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: let down her golden laddered hair within her room. She
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: stood a space to doff her hat, then raised her face,
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: drowsy to kiss with half shut eyes and clung. He
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: felt her full breast rise, quivering soft beneath his breast,
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: body to aching body, pressed knee, sought for knee to
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: fuse with it. Mouth upon mouth fed exquisite, fierce, hand
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: caught shoulder, yielding, waist flesh drank of flesh to pain.
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: Embraced slowly, ecstatically, moving, greedy of every second's loving till
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: weakening with the ultimate kiss, she opened soft her mouth
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: to his torrential flesh. The darkness fell far off, ran
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: reelings of a bell round the sky. Then all was
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: still save for vague steps that climbed, a hill that
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: climbed and climbed, drew every near came up, grew swift, swelled,
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: loud and clear, brought rush of winds, confusing roar, huge
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: waters upon a sandy shore, reverberating, falling, beating, with drawing, rhythmical, repeating,
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: filling the night, the seas, the air, rising and falling everywhere,
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: with drawls, slow succeeding rush, clamor and hush, clamor and hush,
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: vast bells upon his body, rang, clang, upon liberating clang.
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: The whole world cracked and opened up and spilled its
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: splendor like a cup. Oh darkness, drenching all things deep, profound,
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: impenetrable sleep, falling so sweetly and so slowly, to make
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: even dust in starlight, wholly falling at last on time
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: and space, Oh darkness, loveliest of face, bringing intense and
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: wearied light, secure at last to RESTful night, bringing to
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: cool peace the sun Sun's heat, whose feverish golden hammers
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: beat all day long on stubborn soil and stubborn bough,
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: in fruitful toil, all the fierce youth, light wearied so
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: in pouring life and aching flow. Now came this darkness,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: softly down together bliss and pain, to drown in soundless
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: perfectly pouring stream, dark, lustrous flood, unflecked by dream, remote,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: The world in whispers flew remote, The stars and moon withdrew,
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: The tides moved slowly, sleepily. The weary blood moved sluggishly,
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: while heart asleep went ever, beating wearily through the veins,
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: repeating pain and pleasure, pain and pleasure. Life's simple, senseless,
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: tireless measure, forgetfulness. Forgetfulness came down upon all, weariness, suffusing
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: warm and sure and slow. The blood's alternate paws and flow, profound, impenetrable.
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: Death laid hush on all, save gentle breath, O fever'd world,
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: could you but keep for ever? So this dreamless sleep
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: bells peal'd. Night passed, the hours rush'd on, Dawn came,
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: then day, then night, then dawn. A strangely tranquil thing
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: was earth, clear, light, unsmiling without mirth, through the young grass.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: In the bright air. Tranquility hung everywhere, a calm, a slow,
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: deliberate thing, bewitching even the bravest wing. He peer'd, he
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: could not understand, but walked as in an unknown land.
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: The leaves hung motionless in sky, water enchanted, seemed to
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: lie the faint waves, fell asleep, half shaped, the breeze
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: to nothingness, escaped all earth, as touch'd by wind of death,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: seemed holding in suspense, her breath, stirless, dreamless, soulless, still
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: a slumber of a rested will. Who would dare break
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: the silence? Now? Whose hand would shake this dreaming bough
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: set trembling all these leaves once more or urged the
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: ripples up the shore. Tranquility was all reply, the answerless
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: calmness of the sky. And turning from its senseless stare,
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: he saw his shadow crouching there, a shadow, ominous, ugly deep.
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: Even as he looked, it seemed to creep stealthily close.
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: He turned away, and suddenly all the grass seemed gray, listless.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: He touched piano keys. The long, unpracticed melodies came broken
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: from his fingers, stirred, vague hints of color, sound, and word.
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: A world that he had lost somewhere, a world where
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: sunshine filled the air. It was not sad, but pleasant,
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: so to call to mind things long ago, This simple,
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: childlike little tune meant roses. On a night in June,
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: in a cool, shadowy bowl, they lay a fragrant leafy disarray,
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: whole hearted opulence of bloom, glowing and musical in the gloom, Oh,
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: golden hearts. He saw them yet, glistening, widely open, wet.
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: Whose careful hands had put them there? Who with blue
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: eyes and golden hair, the simple notes like water dropp'd,
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: asked a sweet question, laughed and stopped this harsher thing.
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: What did it mean? This was remoter dimly seen school days,
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: a winter evening, coming, white, glistening night, the wild blood humming,
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: a run through drifts in shadowy places, then lights and
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: warmth and well known faces. Something sinister here, though most
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: was warmly colored, still a ghost. He marred a chord
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: and stopp'd, Yet fingered and tapped stray keys a long time,
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: lingered on certain minor tones that beat into his soul.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: Seductive sweet twilight had come in dark, he played, being
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: obscurely now, afraid to rise from shadow, turn on light,
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: and so disclose an empty night. How queerly hard now
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: to believe that this was not a winter's eve. He
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: stood by the window, looking far over black roofs to
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: one large star, and felt great clouds of darkness rise
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: under horizon of those skies, silent and swift, a baleful dream,
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: soon to devour that one star's gleam, pregnant with lightnings.
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: These clouds were a light wind set, the leaves astir
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: uneasily in puffs. They showed pale undersides along the road
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: under the arc lights. Dust was whirling in sinister little spirals, twirling.
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: The night was ominous with threat. He slept and yet
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: could not forget in sleep, how sudden storm came down
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: over the silence of the town. He heard the first
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: slow drops of rain patter upon a far off pane,
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: and pause a moment, and repeat and hurry in unison,
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: then to beat a multitudinous rhythm. There, steady, exhaustless, like despair.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: What gave such talons to this rain? He lived his
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: whole life through again that night two months ago, recalling
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: when snow and sleep were all night falling, when storm
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: whirled up from all his life. Being tired at last
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: of her, his wife, it seem'd again He suffer'd there
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: and heard the elm boughs creaking bare, scraping the eaves
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: in agony, tossed by relentless wind, while he lay in anguish,
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: stretch'd and torn, eyes wide with pain, unclosed forlorn had
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: he then once so deeply loved this woman, now so
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: far removed? He closed his eyes, closed out the storm.
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: The air came fragrant, stealing, warm, pregnant, with lilac shaking, sweet,
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: their purple crowns along the street, while he his young
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: soul turbulent under the stars, through dark streets went the
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: church bells pealed a languid eight. He quickened pace lest
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: he be late, And then behind the glass door, she,
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: far lovelier than a dream could be, with smiling lips
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: and grave shy eyes, so beautiful, so warm, so wise,
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: came subtly, timid, subtly proud, making his pulses push and
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: crowd and clamor and cry, while with slow hands, smiling,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: she drew the latch to stand against the wall, whole
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: leagues away, shrinking and sweet. No word to say, cold
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: came the talons of this rain. Why must he give
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: himself such pain? Why hark back now to what was dead? Lost?
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: Was the magic of that head, forever lost with youth
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: and all bright dreams that fall when youth must fall?
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: Was he not now of all this free, this specious
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: glamour witchery contented now with humble dust, forswearing love, housing lust,
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: this woman by the river. Then he saw her drowsy
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: face again. Had she not wholly satisfied? Had lust not
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: found its perfect bride? The pulses murmurs through his veins, bare,
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: multitudinous tread of rains, unhappy, ceaseless melodies, tireless, tireless trenities.
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: Was something lost, some lovely thing? Flash of blossom, whirr
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: of wing, hover of dream, the sun that lies perpetual
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: myth in childhood's eyes. Was this worth having? Could he
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: go back to that world? He did not know, but
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: thought again how he had crept through the dark house
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: to where she slept, with one arm lying above her
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: there amid her lustrous spread of hair, and how the
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: sweetness of her face had caught his heart a breathing space,
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: And how he kissed her then and went, not knowing
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: well what these things meant, to his own room again,
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: to lie and stretch'd and tortured misery, so she would
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: sleep when she was dead, disheveled, pale, swift. Through his
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: head came words and phrases she had spoken, huddled and breathless, halting, broken,
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: disturbing music, word by word, the well known phrases he
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: had heard day after day, so many years, till in
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: his wide eyes, warm crept tears. Could he go back
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: to her once more? And all the young bright world
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: she wore, that world of luminous rain and sun, all
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: of whose brightness now was done. And if he loved
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: her now, could she bring back life's lost simplicity? Through
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: all his blood flew gusts of rain, And suddenly now
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: it all seemed plain. It was his soul's returning need
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: for her, from whom he thought it free, that drove
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: him forth two nights ago to love a girl he
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: did not know. And now his whole soul turned again
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: to her whom he had dealt such pain. Why if
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: he loved her no more? Now was it such torment?
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: Thinking how she smiled or spoke in years gone by?
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: Why think how he had made her cry this time
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: or that with callous word sharp through the years her
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: sob he heard, slight as a breath, a terrible thing,
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: and saw her hands repel and cling and fugitive, her
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: eyes dark blue, brim bright with sudden tears, where through
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: she looked from infinite distances, beseeching gaze fixed deep on
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: his then sentences that broken came, dissolving him in flaming shame.
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: Could he not now arise from lust? Nobler than dust
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: arise from dust? In all this intervening space? How had
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: she been? With frightened face, he watched the darkness quivering
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: still had she been well? Had she been ill? And
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: suddenly mute went up the cry, O God, if somehow
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: she should die? O God? What dream? And stiff with pain,
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: he felt the pattering of this rain cold on his heart,
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: a talon thing, tireless, ceaseless, maddening. While through it all
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: he dreamed that she lay dead for all eternity, disheveled, pale, unbreathing, cold,
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: soon to be buried under mold, all her young laughter,
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: her sweet mirth, covered deep in soft brown earth. Oh
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: utterly desirable, Oh pain so unendurable to think that she
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: had died alone there in her room, and never known
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: through all these days before she died. That still, through
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: all his heart had cried unceasingly for her, though he,
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: being young and foolish, ceaselessly refused to hear it, turned
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: away and walked through sorrow. Day by day this rain
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: Did it not fall to night above her body's hidden white,
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: stealing through all that darkness, down to damp her hair
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: and stain with brown, her small loft eyelids fast shut now,
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: and the white wisdom of her brow, O Earth, that
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: you should humble deep, such rose as this in endless sleep,
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: and suddenly then released of weight, he knew her living
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: and elate, caught sharp his heart on verge of laughter,
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: drew a deep, tranquil breath, and after being dropp'd in
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: quiet misery, relaxed in sudden agony, turned on his face,
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: let fall the years, and eased his heart with birth
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: of tears. Oh foolish, blind, courageous youth, he knew at
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: last the secret truth. Confusion came this little tune meant roses.
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: On a night in June, in a cool, shadowy bowl
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: they lay a fragrant green, leaved disarray, Whose careful hands
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: had put them there? Who with blue eyes and golden hair, Oh,
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: glowing hearts, he saw them, yet glistening widely open wet.
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: A fountain in a garden pool shot a slim shaft
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: and spattered cool, And on this ever changing shaft a
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: wonderful white ball danced and laughed illusions loss could he
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: no more build castles on Infinity's shore. Sleep stole upon
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: him as he smiled, and in his dreams he ran
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: a child outside his room. A robin sang sun to
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: his heart, shot gleaming pang. And now the grass lay
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: cool and sweet and glistening for his early feet. The
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: sunlight on his eyes was warm, dearer it was for
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: last night's storm, hazily on the town. It lay shimmering
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: gold on softest gray. While joyously he walked along, feeling
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: the deep world shake with song his heart like early
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: morning earth bloomed fragrant, now with strange new birth. Lilac
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: hedge in a willow tree trembled within with fiery glee,
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: feeling the music of this sun through leaf and blossom,
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: subtly run, laughter rose upward in him. Light the spiders
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: busy through the night, had spun gray webs on hedge
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: and lawn. O lovely world revealed by dawn. His heart
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: beat rapidly, he went through this bright world with wonderment,
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: feeling a softness in this air, a tenderness to heal despair,
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: soft light like broken waters, falling song of birds, low voices, calling,
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: music bubbling from deep springs, and flash of sun on
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: dewy wings. Swiftly he went familiar places, lifted serene and
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: joyous faces. This tree he knew, this hedge, this stone
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: through his own heart. These leaves had grown sweetly. These
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: things now spoke of her. They gave him news. They
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: set astir with gleams and perfumes, faintly whirled a dim
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: a half forgotten world. Came. She not forth in these
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: things so to meet her lover, let him know so
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: that she was now as always his. His heart brimmed
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: up with melodies. He climbed the hill with pang of fear,
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: lest somehow she should not be here. There was her
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: window open wide. Some one was moving there inside, trying
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: to call. His voice twice broke before the simple name
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: he spoke, And then she came o wind of spring,
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: making his pulses poor and sing and clamor and cry,
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: While with slow hand, doubting, she drew the latch to stand,
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: shrinking and sweet, no blame to say against the wall,
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: whole leagues away she with blue eyes, the golden haired
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: from whom first love had been declared, her hair, her
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: eyes so sweet, these were that hushed and long. He
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: looked at her nor understood how he had done such hurt,
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: such cruelty to one so beautiful, so warm, so wise,
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: so luminous. With light of skies, pines swelled his heart.
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: The past was dead. He kissed her twice, with no
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: words said this love, it seemed, was free of lust,
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: rose winged and singing out of dust. O world, be
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: ever dark with rain, or be forever mute with pain?
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: To these once more, with sunlight given, They walked on
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: earth and thought it heaven. Thus dust and starlight had
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: its dream, thinking to hold to some faint beam of
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: far off, holier higher things be borne from dust by
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: dream of wings. End of Part ten recording by Expatriate
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: in Bangor Main End of Nocturne of Remembered Spring and
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: other poems by Conrad Aiken